Poetical Competition.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 305, 24 December 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

Poetical Competition.

FIRST PRIZE,

THE CHRISTMAS MISSION.

(By Clara P. Loeeigan, Auckland.)

Hail once again, thou fairest feast of all i"~ Thou yearly visitant from foreign skies ! Hosts of God's creatures echo loud the call, And view with joy thy vestal 'Eastern' guise, Like richly-vestured nymph of paradise. Flashing with brilliant gems of some far mine, Thy snowy robes, like cirri, fall and rise, Filling the breeze with perfumes which combine The breath of cedar, balsam, spikenard, myrrh and pine. Bearing thy costly tablet, dazzling far, With bindings rich of Ophir's pureeb gold, And settings bright as Beth'lem's guiding star, And writ in characters symbolic, old, E'en as tho history its fair signs unfold— Yot, clearly to the most unlettered eye, And simply, is the sacred story told— Thou drawest near, thy precious stone on high, That none in myopy of soul may wander by! Though told for nigh two thousand years, still new, This Tale of Love which old can never grow While heaven's starred face to Nature's laws is true, While sin doth blasb earth's loveliness ' with woe, Yea, while unending ages onward flow, We hear the angels' joyous songs c'en now, And eeo tho snow-strewn shepherds whisp'rinry low Unto the white-haired man with furrowed brow, Guarding bhe grass-grown grotto as love best knows how. And through tho sheafy shelter improvised, Cold moonbeams play, like glow-worms in a nest, Around a fair girl-mother bent, well pleased, Upon tho littered yellow straw, ab resb, Her new-born infant, suckling at her breast; Arid only by th'adoring Magi nigh Is the Divinity made manifest. Oh, God ! Not all man's love in ages by, Nor ages yo>t to come, complied, can with Thine vie ! Heaven'?, Messenger! Not thus we greet thee here, In thia fair Italy of Southern seaa ; Our native isle ! No blast or frozen tear Doth chill thy breath, bub every summer breeze Dotti wafb thee joy, and nature's brilliancies Shine forth in rarest flowers of every hue; In mirrored lakes, in falls and glassy seas, And wooded bow'rs, with sunlight glinbing through, And sapphire skies, hand-painbed by the artist true. And, oh, thy mission cannot be in vain, For adamant the heart that will not heed Thy tale, and feel thee straining at the chain That binds men's hearts, and tolling of tho need God has of all men's love in word and deed.